| Abstract: | The effects of Chemical structure on the molecular motions in linear aliphatic polyesters have been investigated with a free-oscillation torsion pendulum. Broad-line NMR provided supplementary information. In the γ relaxation which corresponds to the local-mode motions of main chains in the noncrystalline region, the polyesters which are composed of two methylene units in the diol part of the chemical repeat unit showed an extremely asymmetric loss curve with a relatively high-loss peak temperature compared with that of the other polyesters. In addition to the two relaxations (β,γ) which have been observed in earlier dielectric measurements, a new relaxation (α) was found on the high-temperature side of the glass transition of the polyesters. The α relaxation was assigned to molecular motions of methylene segments in the crystalline region. The α and β relaxations of the two-dimensional series are situated close to the temperatures found for other polyesters with rather long methylene sequence in the chemical repeat unit. The results were explained in terms of a difference on the chain mobility in the noncrystalline regions which may be related to the difference of chemical structure of the polyesters. |
